Answer writing skills are very effective and necessary for exams. Correct grammar and proper writing skills can convey a student’s confidence and showcase their knowledge and talent. This helps give the examiner a good impression of the student and makes them believe that the student knows what they are writing and understands the material.
Due to poor writing style, some students even fail to structure their answers properly. They fail to convey everything that they want to. Failing to write properly also results in poor time management, poor grammar, and low marks.
That is why writing skill for students is a must-have. Whether it be to make a positive impression, to score 100 Marks on exam, or to write some article or report, those are necessary and advantageous abilities to have.
So now let’s walk through this guide to get proper knowledge and ideas on how to write answers in exams.
Top 6 Tips to Improve Answer Writing Skills
1. Understand the Exam Format
First and foremost, we need to ensure that we understand our question paper. We need to understand our opponents to know how to defeat them. Similarly, we need to get ourselves into the mindset of our examiner. Know what they are expecting in our answers. That is how we will be able to get full marks. So, to do that, let’s see how to understand the exam format:
- Read the question paper once thoroughly.
- Carefully understand the instructions provided to solve each question to avoid making mistakes.
- Identify the marked range of the questions. The answering style differs for short and long answers.
- Go through as many previous year’s question papers as you can. This will help us analyze and prepare for the type of questions they will provide.
2. Regular Practice and Preparation
Regular practice is another thing that will help improve confidence in students. This will help students improve answer writing skills in exams. They need to collect or search for all the previous year’s question papers on the subject. And solve them consistently. This will help them release and loosen up their hands to be comfortable while writing the final exam. This will help them be confident and not feel anxious for the coming exam. They will be able to remember all that they have studied and know the type of questions that will come.
Time management is a deciding factor in an exam. Students are fine during mock practicing. They take their time and write correct answers. But in the exam hall, they often find themselves struggling with properly managing their time. They spend a lot on a question with fewer marks and leave the ones with high weightage.
That is why students should plan their answers before starting. They should practice beforehand to complete an answer correctly within the time limit. And know what to write and what to not. This will help them improve their speed as well as their accuracy. A correct answer is valued, but a fast and accurate answer is perfect.
3. Practice Time Management
We have to understand the fact that time management is important in exams, especially when we write answers. We have discussed that. But how to do that? Let’s discuss some ways in which students will be able to quickly but efficiently complete their answers.
- They should set a timer for solving the PYQs and try gradually reducing it. This will help make them fast.
- Avoid writing unnecessary details that elongate the question.
- Focus only on the necessary and important parts.
- Always review the answers to improve them the next time you write them.
- Focus on solving the questions with high marks first.
- Always recheck to know that you haven’t missed an answer or two
4. Structuring Your Answers
As important as it is to write the correct answers within the time limit, structuring your answers is even more important. This will give your answer a beautiful framework. It will make it appear professional. And will make it more readable and approachable.
A confusing answer with no structure is a poor answer. Teachers will easily get frustrated and reduce marks due to a poorly structured answer. That is why we should follow an ‘Introduction’, ‘Body’, and ‘Conclusion’ structure.
- Introduction: Here we need to introduce our answer by providing the examiner with a brief overview of the definition of the topic.
- Body: Here we need to present our arguments, discussion, and other enhancements required for our answer.
- Conclusion: Here we will summarise every point we discussed in this answer, and give a closing statement to conclude our answer.
This is the structure we need to follow for all types of questions and answers.
Secondly, to maintain this structure we need to organize our thoughts. We need to know in our mind, what information will come where. This will also help prevent mistakenly missing an important point.
So, try using numbers and bullet points to clean up the answer. This will help make it more visible and readable. Keep sure to follow proper coherence between the various points that you are writing. This will help make them easy to remember. And better to read and follow.
5. Enhancing Language and Clarity
We should maintain proper grammar and vocabulary throughout our answer sheets. This will help make our answers more professional and readable. Proper clarity will help us secure better marks and keep the teacher happy with us. So, to do that, we should read and follow these points:
- Avoid extending the answer meaninglessly. This will increase the chances of grammatical and spelling errors.
- Use professional and technical terms when required.
- Avoid continuous use of weak words like just, very, that, etc.
- Do not write a word you aren’t familiar with.
- Use points.
- Avoid long sentences and paragraphs.
- Reread your answers to recheck them.
Following these will ensure that our answers are better looking as well as clearer. This will also help us avoid making mistakes that we are more prone to making otherwise.
6. Feedback and Continuous Improvement
Now that we have written and submitted our answers, we should focus on getting feedback.
- Ask your teacher where you are lacking. Question them on where they deducted your marks and why.
- Try rewriting the answer, but this time improving it to not make those mistakes.
- Compare your answers with those who scored and wrote better than you.
- Keep practicing those answers till you don’t get it right without any help.
Conclusion:
In this article we learned how to improve answer writing skills. Improving our writing styles is something we all should focus on. But more specifically students. It will help them score better marks and build a bright future.
So, for that students need to practice PYQs, and understand and analyze them. They need to practice writing more and more and use timers to write fast. They should try giving mock exams to not get anxious during the final exam.
Time management along with proper dedication and reviewing will take them a long way. They need to recheck their answers. Avoid poor grammar and weak words. Pointers should be preferred to paragraphs as they help keep the answer clean. They should maintain a good structure. They should work on the feedback that they get from their teachers.
To enhance their writing skills, students can take one-on-one online classes from Physics Point, where expert teachers explain how to improve writing effectively.
